American Express Connects With Users on a New Channel: Television

So your online and mobile channels are humming along nicely — but are you connecting with customers over a dedicated television channel?

American Express is. The American Express Interactive Channel launched just over a year ago and currently reaches 63 million households in the U.S., making it, the company says, “the largest interactive TV campaign ever.” That language is significant. The channel itself is a marketing campaign.

In December 2013 the channel launched on Roku digital media players, adding another 5 million households to the channel’s reach.

The station was born from the need to communicate to prospects and card members that American Express is a “lifestyle brand with an emphasis on service,” according to Caitlin Stefanik, director of public affairs and communications for corporate sponsorship and advertising. Paid TV spots or rich media assets were not sufficient for what the brand wished to accomplish.

In order to communicate the American Express cardholder lifestyle, the station skips over financial matters and instead focuses on activities such as music, fashion and food. There are also calls to view the station on other channels. For example, American Express ads appearing to customers watching other channels may carry messages to tune to the American Express Channel for more information about a product or offer.

This is a very interesting point — keeping customers in the channel of their preference, even on television. This is to be commended, as studies have demonstrated that keeping customers in their channel of greatest comfort builds strong affinity for brands. American Express has not always shown the greatest concern for keeping customers in the channel of their choosing, however, as the tweet below indicates.

https://twitter.com/AskAmex/status/390487961923371008

The channel leverages assets from across Amex’s ecosystem, including games and offers, purchase protection and live-streamed events, according to Stefanik. Given that many Americans watch TV while also using their mobile devices, an interesting use of the channel would be to offer items or services for sale and simultaneously tweet offer codes. Users could view the pitch on TV, then retweet the offer to make the purchase.

The channel has seen good results, Stefanik said. Viewers stay on the channel for more than four minutes, which is apparently a good result in our channel-surfing culture. This is four times as long as the average user spends on americanexpress.com, according to the company’s own data. Specifically, 25% of viewers are returning viewers of the channel, and viewers are 50% more likely to take an “Amex action,” meaning that they will choose to engage with the brand as a result of their watching the channel. Further, a marketing study from January 2013 concluded that after viewing the channel, prospective customers were five times more likely to apply for a card.

American Express is a creative company with deep pockets. In the era of digital TV, channels and video production are within the reach of any large corporation. Screens are converging and multi-screen viewing is already common. But would a TV channel make sense for any other financial brand? It seems unlikely that many other financial institutions have brands comparable to American Express’s that would attract viewers when there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other channels just a click away.